The Beginning of the School Year

Every year I panic: "How am I going to get it all done before the kids get here?" Every year I totally freak out that the kids are going to show up and the room is going to be a mess, I'll have no lesson plans, no computers, etc. So far, I've been organized enough and able to spend many many extra hours in my classroom setting up so those things have never happened.

This year may be the year my fears come true.

Every teacher spends their own time setting up their classrooms at the beginning of the year. It's one of those things that just goes with the territory: the building custodians tear your room apart during the summer and it's up to you to put it back again. On your own time, no less. In the past, I've looked at this daunting project with a bit of excitement: it's fun to rearrange your room, throw out things that didn't work last year and plan for new activities. Last year, I went in to school for 2 additional days before the start of the year and I easily stayed every night for two weeks until 5 or 6pm. If you've been keeping up on my previous posts, you may have spotted the problem that is totally stressing me out right now: how the heck am I going to get my room ready, have lesson plans prepared and still have time for Maelin?

In order to fully have you understand my problem, let me give you a glimpse of what my room looked like when I came back from summer break and the things I need to have ready for next Tuesday:

**Computers are trashed. They aren't hooked up, monitors are upside down and they are in a tangle of wires, plugs and outlets. I'm missing all my mouse pads, my printer and all my discs that the kids used last year. Plan on spending at least 4 hours putting all this back together because the district cut the technology services this year due to budget cuts.

**Desks and chairs are stacked up to the ceiling. This includes my teacher desk (which I had to empty last spring and now I have to find the box with all my flies and supplies) and my filing cabinet and my big table.

**There are 33 boxes of curriculum materials for me to go through and sort. Each box will take at least 45 minutes to put away.

**Most of my books are completely mixed up. Plan on spending at least 3 hours organizing them.

**Different odds and ends need to be taken care of: cleaning, putting away school supplies, throwing trash away, getting rid of old curriculum, etc.

**Read entire new curriculum so I know what I'm supposed to be teaching. This will take 2 days.

**Complete entire new lesson plans on my hard drive because we added 45 minutes to the school day this year so the entire day will look different. This will take about 3 hours.

**Create new literacy and math centers. This is huge. Centers are a great way for kids to learn, but they take a lot of time to create. Once they're up and running, they're easier, but they are a huge pain to create. This will take the better part of the next few weeks to create and gather materials.

**One more day of professional meetings our principal has scheduled for us.

No wonder I'm stressed out! Normally, I find all this fun and stimulating, but how in the world am I going to get this all done by next week when the students get here and still leave at 4:15 to pick up Maelin?????

Hmmmmmmm....is it too late to just stay at home with the baby???